Search results for: mixed number

Authors: T. Punjansing, M. Nakkuntod, S. Homchan, P. Inthima, A. Kongbangkerd

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The influence of organic supplements on growth and multiplication efficiency of Phaius tankervilleae var. alba seedlings was investigated. 12 week-old seedlings were cultured on half-strength semi-solid Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 30 g/L sucrose, 8 g/L agar and various concentrations of coconut water (0, 50, 100, 150 and 200 mL/L) combined with potato extract (0, 25 and 50 g/L) and the pH was adjusted to 5.8 prior to autoclaving. The cultures were then kept under constant photoperiod (16 h light: 8 h dark) at 25 ± 2 °C for 12 weeks. The highest number of shoots (3.0 shoots/explant) was obtained when cultured on the medium added with 50 ml/L coconut water and 50 g/L potato extract whereas the highest number of leaves (5.9 leaves/explant) and roots (6.1 roots/explant) could receive on the medium supplemented with 150 ml/L coconut water and 50 g/L potato extract. with 150 ml/L coconut water and 50 g/L potato extract. Additionally, plantlets of P. tankervilleae var. alba were transferred to grow into seven different substrates i.e. soil, sand, coconut husk chip, soil-sand mix (1: 1), soil-coconut husk chip mix (1: 1), sand-coconut husk chip mix (1: 1) and soil-sand-coconut husk chip mix (1: 1: 1) for four weeks. The results found that acclimatized plants showed 100% of survivals when sand, coconut husk chip and sand-coconut husk chip mix are used as substrates. The number of leaves induced by sand-coconut husk chip mix was significantly higher than that planted in other substrates (P > 0.05). Meanwhile, no significant difference in new shoot formation among these substrates was observed (P < 0.05). This precursory developing protocol was likely to be applied for more large scale of plant production as well as conservation of germplasm of this orchid species.

Keywords: organic supplements, acclimatization, Phaius tankervilleae var. alba, orchid

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Authors: Qian Yi Ooi

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At present, airfoil parameters are still designed and optimized according to the scale of conventional aircraft, and there are still some slight deviations in terms of scale differences. However, insufficient parameters or poor surface mesh quality is likely to occur if these small deviations are embedded in a future civil aircraft with a size that is quite different from conventional aircraft, such as a blended-wing-body (BWB) aircraft with future potential, resulting in large deviations in geometric similarity in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. To avoid this situation, the study on the CFD calculation on the geometric similarity of airfoil parameters and the quality of the surface mesh is conducted to obtain the ability of different parameterization methods applied on different airfoil scales. The research objects are three airfoil scales, including the wing root and wingtip of conventional civil aircraft and the wing root of the giant hybrid wing, used by three parameterization methods to compare the calculation differences between different sizes of airfoils. In this study, the constants including NACA 0012, a Reynolds number of 10 million, an angle of attack of zero, a C-grid for meshing, and the k-epsilon (k-ε) turbulence model are used. The experimental variables include three airfoil parameterization methods: point cloud method, B-spline curve method, and class function/shape function transformation (CST) method. The airfoil dimensions are set to 3.98 meters, 17.67 meters, and 48 meters, respectively. In addition, this study also uses different numbers of edge meshing and the same bias factor in the CFD simulation. Studies have shown that with the change of airfoil scales, different parameterization methods, the number of control points, and the meshing number of divisions should be used to improve the accuracy of the aerodynamic performance of the wing. When the airfoil ratio increases, the most basic point cloud parameterization method will require more and larger data to support the accuracy of the airfoil’s aerodynamic performance, which will face the severe test of insufficient computer capacity. On the other hand, when using the B-spline curve method, average number of control points and meshing number of divisions should be set appropriately to obtain higher accuracy; however, the quantitative balance cannot be directly defined, but the decisions should be made repeatedly by adding and subtracting. Lastly, when using the CST method, it is found that limited control points are enough to accurately parameterize the larger-sized wing; a higher degree of accuracy and stability can be obtained by using a lower-performance computer.

Keywords: airfoil, computational fluid dynamics, geometric similarity, surface mesh quality

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Authors: Gwendy Darras, Mattias Desmet

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Previous research showed that psychological distress has a negative impact on the disease course of viral infections. For COVID-19, the same association was observed in small samples of specific segments of the population (e.g. health care workers). The present study presents a more refined analysis of this association, measuring a broader spectrum of psychological distress in a large sample (n=3084) of the general Flemish population. Several types of psychological distress (state, trait and health anxiety, depression, intra-, and interpersonal stress) are registered throughout three periods: one year before the contamination, one week before the contamination, and during the contamination. In doing so, validated scales such as DASS-21, IIP-32, and FCV-19S are used. Furthermore, the course of COVID-19 is registered in several ways: number of symptoms, number of days sick leave due to COVID-19, and number of days the symptoms have lasted. Also, different control variables such as vaccination status, medical and psychological history are taken into account. Statistical analysis shows that all types of psychological distress are positively correlated with the severity of the COVID-19 disease course. Anxiety during the contamination shows the strongest correlation, but psychological distress one year before the onset of COVID-19 was still significantly associated with the worsening of the disease course. As the assessment of the latter type of distress happened before the onset of the COVID-19 disease course, retrospective bias resulting in artificial associations between self-reported stress and COVID-19 severity is unlikely to have impacted the observations. In view of possible future pandemics, it is important to focus on general stress and anxiety reduction in the general population as soon as possible. It is also advisable to minimize the use of stress-inducing messages to encourage the population to adhere to the measures issued during a pandemic.

Keywords: anxiety, COVID-19, depression, psychoneuroimmunology, psychological distress, stress

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Authors: Mohammad Shahjahan, Md. Monoarul Haque

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In the research work information and data were collected from both types of sources, direct and indirect. Numerological, qualitative and participatory analysis methods have been followed. There were two principal sources of collecting information and data. Firstly, the data provided by the service recipients (300 nos. of women and children victims) in the Victim Support Centre and service providing policemen, executives and staffs (60 nos.). Secondly, data collected from Specialists, Criminologists and Sociologists involved in victim support services through Consultative Interview, KII, Case Study and FGD etc. The initial data collection has been completed with the help of questionnaires as per strategic variations and with the help of guidelines. It is to be noted that the main objective of this research was to determine whether services provided to the victims for their facilities, treatment/medication and rehabilitation by different government/non-government organizations was veritable at all. At the same time socio-economic background and demographic characteristics of the victims have also been revealed through this research. The results of the study show that although the number of victims has increased gradually due to socio-economic, political and cultural realities in Bangladesh, the number of victim support centers has not increased as expected. Awareness among the victims about the effectiveness of the 8 centers working in this regard is also not up to the mark. Two thirds of the victims coming to get service were not cognizant regarding the victim support services at all before getting the service. Most of those who have finally been able to come under the services of the Victim Support Center through various means, have received sheltering (15.5%), medical services (13.32%), counseling services (13.10%) and legal aid (12.66%). The opportunity to stay in security custody and psycho-physical services were also notable. Usually, women and children from relatively poor and marginalized families of the society come to victim support center for getting services. Among the women, young unmarried women are the biggest victims of crime. Again, women and children employed as domestic workers are more affected. A number of serious negative impacts fall on the lives of the victims. Being deprived of employment opportunities (26.62%), suffering from psycho-somatic disorder (20.27%), carrying sexually transmitted diseases (13.92%) are among them. It seems apparent to urgently enact distinct legislation, increase the number of Victim Support Centers, expand the area and purview of services and take initiative to increase public awareness and to create mass movement.

Keywords: crime, victim, support, Bangladesh

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Authors: Norazam Arbin, Habibis Saleh, Ammar Alsabery, Ishak Hashim

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Double-diffusive natural convection in an open top cavity with partial vertical heating and salting sources is investigated numerically. Different temperatures and concentrations are applied at the source location on the right and left walls while the other remains adiabatic except at the open top surface. Various combinations of sources arrangements are imposed at the vertical walls in order to observe the significant impact to the convection. An iterative finite different method is used to solve the dimensionless governing equations. The effects of Marangoni number and sources arrangements on the contours of streamlines, isotherms, and concentrations are visualized as the outcome of the numerical solutions. The average Nusselt and Sherwood number are presented for various sources arrangements. It is clearly observed that the sources arrangements gave major impact on the heat and mass transfer rates. A horizontal-like pattern is found for sources arrangements that near the top-free surface.

Keywords: double-diffusive, Marangoni effect, partial heating, salting

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Authors: Sireetorn Kuharat, Anwar Beg

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In this study, multi-mode heat transfer characteristics of spacecraft solar collectors are investigated computationally. Two-dimensional steady-state incompressible laminar Newtonian viscous convection-radiative heat transfer in a rectangular solar collector geometry. The ANSYS FLUENT finite volume code (version 17.2) is employed to simulate the thermo-fluid characteristics. Several radiative transfer models are employed which are available in the ANSYS workbench, including the classical Rosseland flux model and the more elegant P1 flux model. Mesh-independence tests are conducted. Validation of the simulations is conducted with a computational Harlow-Welch MAC (Marker and Cell) finite difference method and excellent correlation. The influence of aspect ratio, Prandtl number (Pr), Rayleigh number (Ra) and radiative flux model on temperature, isotherms, velocity, the pressure is evaluated and visualized in color plots. Additionally, the local convective heat flux is computed and solutions are compared with the MAC solver for various buoyancy effects (e.g. Ra = 10,000,000) achieving excellent agreement. The P1 model is shown to better predict the actual influence of solar radiative flux on thermal fluid behavior compared with the limited Rosseland model. With increasing Rayleigh numbers the hot zone emanating from the base of the collector is found to penetrate deeper into the collector and rises symmetrically dividing into two vortex regions with very high buoyancy effect (Ra >100,000). With increasing Prandtl number (three gas cases are examined respectively hydrogen gas mixture, air and ammonia gas) there is also a progressive incursion of the hot zone at the solar collector base higher into the solar collector space and simultaneously a greater asymmetric behavior of the dual isothermal zones. With increasing aspect ratio (wider base relative to the height of the solar collector geometry) there is a greater thermal convection pattern around the whole geometry, higher temperatures and the elimination of the cold upper zone associated with lower aspect ratio.

Keywords: thermal convection, radiative heat transfer, solar collector, Rayleigh number

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Authors: W. Hamaidia, T. Zebbiche

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This paper presents the design of axisymmetric supersonic nozzles, in order to accelerate a supersonic flow to the desired Mach number and that having a small weight, in the same time gives a high thrust. The concerned nozzle gives a parallel and uniform flow at the exit section. The nozzle is divided into subsonic and supersonic regions. The supersonic portion is independent to the upstream conditions of the sonic line. The subsonic portion is used to give a sonic flow at the throat. In this case, nozzle gives a uniform and parallel flow at the exit section. It’s named by minimum length Nozzle. The study is done at high temperature, lower than the dissociation threshold of the molecules, in order to improve the aerodynamic performances. Our aim consists of improving the performances both by the increase of exit Mach number and the thrust coefficient and by reduction of the nozzle's mass. The variation of the specific heats with the temperature is considered. The design is made by the Method of Characteristics. The finite differences method with predictor-corrector algorithm is used to make the numerical resolution of the obtained nonlinear algebraic equations. The application is for air. All the obtained results depend on three parameters which are exit Mach number, the stagnation temperature, the chosen mesh in characteristics. A numerical simulation of nozzle through Computational Fluid Dynamics-FASTRAN was done to determine and to confirm the necessary design parameters.

Keywords: flux supersonic flow, axisymmetric minimum length nozzle, high temperature, method of characteristics, calorically imperfect gas, finite difference method, trust coefficient, mass of the nozzle, specific heat at constant pressure, air, error

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Authors: Reza Ziaie Moayed, Hamidreza Rahmani

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Today, with developments in science and technology, there is an excessive potential for the use of nanomaterials in various fields of geotechnical project such as soil stabilization. This study investigates the effect of Nano-SiO₂ solution on the unconfined compression strength and Young's elastic modulus of Kaolinite. For this purpose, nano-SiO₂ was mixed with kaolinite in five different contents: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5% by weight of the dry soil and a series of the unconfined compression test with curing time of one-day was selected as laboratory test. Analyses of the tests results show that stabilization of kaolinite with Nano-SiO₂ solution can improve effectively the unconfined compression strength of modified soil up to 1.43 times compared to  the pure soil.

Keywords: kaolinite, Nano-SiO2, stabilization, unconfined compression test, Young's modulus

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Authors: Shamima Akhter, Siegfried Bauer

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The aim of this study is to analyze the migration process of the rural population of Bangladesh. Heckman Probit model with sample selection was applied in this paper to explore the determinants of migration and intensity of migration at farm household level. The farm survey was conducted in the central part of Bangladesh on 160 farm households with migrant and on 154 farm households without migrant including a total of 316 farm households. The results from the applied model revealed that main determinants of migration at farm household level are household age, economically active males and females, number of young and old dependent members in the household and agricultural land holding. On the other hand, the main determinants of intensity of migration are availability of economically adult male in the household, number of young dependents and agricultural land holding.

Keywords: determinants, Heckman Probit model, migration, rural-urban

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Authors: Yue-Tzu Yang, Shu-Ching Liao

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This study presents the numerical simulation of three-dimensional incompressible steady and laminar fluid flow and conjugate heat transfer of a trapezoidal microchannel heat sink using water as a cooling fluid in a silicon substrate. Navier-Stokes equations with conjugate energy equation are discretized by finite-volume method. We perform numerical computations for a range of 50 ≦ Re ≦ 600, 0.05W ≦ P ≦ 0.8W, 20W/cm2 ≦ ≦ 40W/cm2. The present study demonstrates the numerical optimization of a trapezoidal microchannel heat sink design using the response surface methodology (RSM) and the genetic algorithm method (GA). The results show that the average Nusselt number increases with an increase in the Reynolds number or pumping power, and the thermal resistance decreases as the pumping power increases. The thermal resistance of a trapezoidal microchannel is minimized for a constant heat flux and constant pumping power.

Keywords: microchannel heat sinks, conjugate heat transfer, optimization, genetic algorithm method

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Authors: Fatma Romeh, Shiferaw Gurmu

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This paper examines the impact of female education on fertility, using the change in length of primary schooling in Egypt in 1988-89 as the source of exogenous variation in schooling. In particular, beginning in 1988, children had to attend primary school for only five years rather than six years. This change was applicable to all individuals born on or after October 1977. Using a nonparametric regression discontinuity approach, we compare education and fertility of women born just before and after October 1977. The results show that female education significantly reduces the number of children born per woman and delays the time until first birth. Applying a robust regression discontinuity approach, however, the impact of education on the number of children is no longer significant. The impact on the timing of first birth remained significant under the robust approach. Each year of female education postponed childbearing by three months, on average.

Keywords: Egypt, female education, fertility, robust regression discontinuity

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Authors: Mostafa ‘Neo’ Mohsenvand, Mohammad Rasool Izadi, Pattie Maes

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EEG-based biometrics (user identification) has been explored on small datasets of no more than 157 subjects. Here we show that the accuracy of modern supervised methods falls rapidly as the number of users increases to a few thousand. Moreover, supervised methods require a large amount of labeled data for training which limits their applications in real-world scenarios where acquiring data for training should not take more than a few minutes. We show that using contrastive learning for pre-training, it is possible to maintain high accuracy on a dataset of 2130 subjects while only using a fraction of labels. We compare 5 different self-supervised tasks for pre-training of the encoder where our proposed method achieves the accuracy of 96.4%, improving the baseline supervised models by 22.75% and the competing self-supervised model by 3.93%. We also study the effects of the length of the signal and the number of channels on the accuracy of the user-identification models. Our results reveal that signals from temporal and frontal channels contain more identifying features compared to other channels.

Keywords: brainprint, contrastive learning, electroencephalo-gram, self-supervised learning, user identification

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Authors: Armin Shirbazo, Hamed Lamei Ramandi, Mohammad Vahab, Jalal Fahimpour

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Hydraulic fracturing, especially multi-stage hydraulic fracturing, is a practical solution for wells with uneconomic production. The wide range of applications is appraised appropriately to have a stable well-production. Production logging tool, which is known as PLT in the oil and gas industry, is counted as one of the most reliable methods to evaluate the efficiency of fractures jobs. This tool has a number of benefits and can be used to prevent subsequent production failure. It also distinguishes different problems that occurred during well-production. In this study, the effectiveness of hydraulic fracturing jobs is examined by using the PLT in various cases and situations. The performance of hydraulically fractured wells is investigated. Then, the PLT is employed to gives more information about the properties of different layers. The PLT is also used to selecting an optimum fracturing design. The results show that one fracture and three-stage fractures behave differently. In general, the one-stage fracture should be created in high-quality areas of the reservoir to have better performance, and conversely, in three-stage fractures, low-quality areas are a better candidate for fracturing

Keywords: multi-stage fracturing, horizontal well, PLT, fracture length, number of stages

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Authors: Irene H. Maralit

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Warning labels have been found to inform smokers about the health hazards of smoking, encourage smokers to quit, and prevent nonsmokers from starting to smoke. Warning labels on tobacco products are an ideal way of communicating with smokers. Since the intervention is delivered at the time of smoking, nearly all smokers are exposed to warning labels and pack-a-day smokers could be exposed to the warnings more than 7,000 times per year. Given the reach and frequency of exposure, the proponents want to know the effect of warning labels on smoking behavior. Its aims to identify the profile of the smokers associated with its behavioral variables that best describe the users’ perception. The behavioral variables are AVOID, THINK RISK and FORGO. This research study aims to determine if there is significant relationship between the effect of warning labels on cigarette package on Consumer behavior when grouped according to profile variable. The researcher used quota sampling to gather representative data through purposive means to determine the accurate representation of data needed in the study. Furthermore, the data was gathered through the use of a self-constructed questionnaire. The statistical method used were Frequency count, Chi square, multi regression, weighted mean and ANOVA to determine the scale and percentage of the three variables. After the analysis of data, results shows that most of the respondents belongs to age range 22–28 years old with percentage of 25.3%, majority are male with a total number of 134 with percentage of 89.3% and single with total number of 79 and percentage of 52.7%, mostly are high school graduates with total number of 59 and percentage of 39.3, with regards to occupation, skilled workers have the highest frequency of 37 with 24.7%, Majority of the income of the respondents falls under the range of Php 5,001-Php10,000 with 50.7%. And also with regards to the number of sticks consumed per day falls under 6–10 got the highest frequency with 33.3%. The respondents THINK RISK factor got the highest composite mean which is 2.79 with verbal interpretation of agree. It is followed by FORGO with 2.78 composite mean and a verbal interpretation of agree and AVOID variable with composite mean of 2.77 with agree as its verbal interpretation. In terms of significant relationship on the effects of cigarette label to consumer behavior when grouped according to profile variable, sex and occupation found to be significant.

Keywords: consumer behavior, smokers, warning labels, think risk avoid forgo

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Authors: Dana Alghool, Tarek ElMekkawy, Mohamed Haouari, Adel Elomari

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District cooling systems have captured the attentions of many researchers recently due to the enormous benefits offered by such system in comparison with traditional cooling technologies. It is considered a major component of urban cities due to the significant reduction of energy consumption. This paper aims to find the optimal design and operation of district cooling systems by developing a mixed integer linear programming model to minimize the annual total system cost and satisfy the end-user cooling demand. The proposed model is experimented with different cooling demand scenarios. The results of the very high cooling demand scenario are only presented in this paper. A sensitivity analysis on different parameters of the model was performed.

Keywords: Annual Cooling Demand, Compression Chiller, Mathematical Modeling, District Cooling Systems, Optimization

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Authors: A. Özyer, N. G. Turan, Y. Ardalı

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The environmental fate of organic contaminants in soils is influenced significantly by the pH, texture of soil, water content and also presence of organic matter. In this study, biodegradation of endosulfan isomers was studied in two different soils (Soil A and Soil B) that have contrasting properties in terms of their texture, pH, organic content, etc. Two Nocardia sp., which were isolated from soil, were used for degradation of endosulfan. Soils were contaminated with commercial endosulfan. Six sets were maintained from two different soils, contaminated with different endosulfan concentrations for degradation experiments. Inoculated and uninoculated mineral media with Nocardia isolates were added to the soils and mixed. Soils were incubated at a certain temperature (30 °C) during ten weeks. Residue endosulfan and its metabolites’ concentrations were determined weekly during the incubation period. The changes of the soil microorganisms were investigated weekly.

Keywords: endosulfan, biodegradation, Nocardia sp. soil, organochlorine pesticide

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Authors: Mohammad Befkin, Alireza Momtaz

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Structural design is the challenging aspect of every project due to limitations in dimensions, functionality of the structure, and more importantly, the allocated budget for construction. This research study aims to investigate the optimized design for three steel moment frame buildings with different number of stories using genetic algorithm code. The number and length of spans, and height of each floor were constant in all three buildings. The design of structures are carried out according to AISC code within the provisions of plastic design with allowable stress values. Genetic code for optimization is produced using MATLAB program, while buildings modeled in Opensees program and connected to the MATLAB code to perform iterations in optimization steps. In the end designs resulted from genetic algorithm code were compared with the analysis of buildings in ETABS program. The results demonstrated that suggested structural elements by the code utilize their full capacity, indicating the desirable efficiency of produced code.

Keywords: genetic algorithm, structural analysis, steel moment frame, structural design

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Authors: S. Houcine Habib, B. Elkhalil Hachi, Mohamed Guesmi, Mohamed Haboussi

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In this paper, dynamic fracture behaviors of cracked orthotropic structure are modeled using extended finite element method (X-FEM). In this approach, the finite element method model is first created and then enriched by special orthotropic crack tip enrichments and Heaviside functions in the framework of partition of unity. The mixed mode stress intensity factor (SIF) is computed using the interaction integral technique based on J-integral in order to predict cracking behavior of the structure. The developments of these procedures are programmed and introduced in a self-software platform code. To assess the accuracy of the developed code, results obtained by the proposed method are compared with those of literature.

Keywords: X-FEM, composites, stress intensity factor, crack, dynamic orthotropic behavior

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Authors: Jade Martínez-Llinàs, Pere Colet

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By exploring the possible dynamical regimes in a prototypical model for mutually delay-coupled OEOs, here it is shown that two mutually coupled non-identical OEOs, besides in- and out-of-phase square-waves, can generate stable square-wave pulses synchronized at a quarter of the period (T/4) in a broad parameter region. The key point to obtain T/4 solutions is that the two OEO operate with mixed feedback, namely with negative feedback in one and positive in the other. Furthermore, the coexistence of multiple solutions provides a large degree of flexibility for tuning the frequency in the GHz range without changing any parameter. As a result the two coupled OEOs system is good candidate to be implemented for information encoding as a high-capacity memory device.

Keywords: nonlinear optics, optoelectronic oscillators, square waves, synchronization

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Authors: Saheb Yousefi, Kim T. Zebehazy, Parviz Sharifi Daramadi, Tahereh Najafi Fard, Kevin Murfitt

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Context: Children with visual impairments often face challenges in their cognitive, motor, and social development. Sensory-motor and spatial perception therapies can be beneficial for these children, but many existing programs only focus on a limited set of therapies. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a rehabilitation program for sensory- motor and spatial perception in reducing the fear of mobility in visually impaired children. Research Aim: The aim of this study is to determine if a rehabilitation program based on parent-child interaction can reduce the fear of mobility in visually impaired children. Methodology: This study uses a semi-experimental approach with an uneven control group design. Visually impaired children aged 10 to 14 and their parents from the Board of the Blind and Visually Impaired in Tehran Province were included in the study. The sample was divided into experimental and control groups, with a total of 30 participants. The experimental group participated in a rehabilitation program for sensory-motor and spatial perception based on parent-child interaction, while the control group did not receive this intervention. Data was collected using questionnaires on transportation issues and analyzed using multivariate and univariate mixed analysis of variance tests. Findings: The analysis of the data showed that the fear of movement was significantly improved in the experimental group compared to the control group after the intervention. Theoretical Importance: This study highlights the effectiveness of a rehabilitation program for sensory- motor and spatial perception based on parent-child interaction in reducing the fear of mobility in visually impaired children. It contributes to the existing knowledge by demonstrating the positive impact of this type of intervention on the cognitive, motor, and social development of these children. Data Collection and Analysis Procedures: Data was collected through the use of questionnaires administered to the children before and after the intervention. The data was analyzed using multivariate and univariate mixed analysis of variance tests to examine the effects of the rehabilitation program. Questions Addressed: This study addresses the question of whether a rehabilitation program based on parent-child interaction can reduce the fear of mobility in visually impaired children. Conclusion: The findings of this study support the effectiveness of the sensory-motor and spatial perception rehabilitation program based on parent-child interaction in reducing the fear of movement in visually impaired children. This intervention can be considered as a suitable method to enhance the fear of mobility in these children.

Keywords: vision impairment, sensory-motor rehabilitation, space perception, parent-child interaction, fear of movement.

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Authors: Karin Eines, Riki Tesler

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Introduction: The Mamanet Cachibol League (MCL) is a community-based model developed in Israel to promote physical activity (PA) and amateur team sports among women. team sports are not just groups in the context of specific sport activity but also incorporated into a person’s sense of self and become influencing factor on sport-related behavior among the players. While in the non-Arabic sector, sport venues are available for the local authority population, the Arabic sector authorities face limited access sport facilities, with 168 sport venues and authorities with no venues at all. Within the Arab community, women participation in sports has traditionally been limited and, even more so for participation in team sports. Aims: The purpose of the study was to explore attributes of women MCL activity via: (1) assess differences between participants in the MCL and non-participants among Arab women regarding well-being level; (2) to examine among MCL participants the relationship between health maintenance characteristics and the likelihood of participating in the MCL; and (3) Use qualitative approach to shed light over the question why Arabic women participate in MCL and continue their engagement in PA. Methods: An explanatory sequential mixed-method design was employed to gain a deeper understanding of the advantages and motivations among women participating in community-based team sports. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among Israeli Arab women aged 25–59. Demographic characteristics, well-being (SRH and psychosomatic symptoms), eating habits, and social support were analyzed using two-way analyses of covariance and multiple regression models with a sequential entry of the variables. Quantitative results were further explored in qualitative in-depth interviews among 30 of the MCL participants, which shed light on additional reasons for participation in PA. Results: MCL participants reported better self-reported health (p < 0.001) and lower rates of psychosomatic symptoms (p < 0.001) compared to non-participants. Participation in MCL was also related to higher levels of well-being and healthy eating habits. Women who participated also experienced a profound sense of belonging, leading to enhanced social interactions and positivity in their personal and professional lives. They were dedicated to the group and felt empowered by the reciprocal commitment. The group promoted equality, making the women feel valued and respected, resulting in community admiration. Their involvement positively impacted their families, justifying their time commitment.

Keywords: wellbeing, obesity, community based sports, healthy eating habits, arab women

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Authors: Ci Lin, Tet Yeap, Iluju Kiringa

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This paper introduces the subspace rotation algorithm (SRA) to train the Restricted Hopfield Network (RHN) as an auto-associative memory. Subspace rotation algorithm is a gradient-free subspace tracking approach based on the singular value decomposition (SVD). In comparison with Backpropagation Through Time (BPTT) on training RHN, it is observed that SRA could always converge to the optimal solution and BPTT could not achieve the same performance when the model becomes complex, and the number of patterns is large. The AUTS case study showed that the RHN model trained by SRA could achieve a better structure of attraction basin with larger radius(in general) than the Hopfield Network(HNN) model trained by Hebbian learning rule. Through learning 10000 patterns from MNIST dataset with RHN models with different number of hidden nodes, it is observed that an several components could be adjusted to achieve a balance between recovery accuracy and noise resistance.

Keywords: hopfield neural network, restricted hopfield network, subspace rotation algorithm, hebbian learning rule

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Authors: Fatimah Alsaleh, Glenda Anthony

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The practicum experience is a critical component of any initial teacher education (ITE) course. As well as providing a near authentic setting for pre-service teachers (PSTs) to practice in, it also plays a key role in shaping their perceptions and sense of preparedness. Nevertheless, merely including a practicum period as a compulsory part of ITE may not in itself be enough to induce feelings of preparedness and efficacy; the quality of the classroom experience must also be considered. Drawing on findings of a larger study of secondary and intermediate level mathematics PSTs’ sense of preparedness to teach, this paper examines the influence of the practicum experience in particular. The study sample comprised female mathematics PSTs who had almost completed their teaching methods course in their fourth year of ITE across 16 teacher education programs in Saudi Arabia. The impact of the practicum experience on PSTs’ sense of preparedness was investigated via a mixed-methods approach combining a survey (N = 105) and in-depth interviews with survey volunteers (N = 16). Statistical analysis in SPSS was used to explore the quantitative data, and thematic analysis was applied to the qualitative interviews data. The results revealed that the PSTs perceived the practicum experience to have played a dominant role in shaping their feelings of preparedness and efficacy. However, despite the generally positive influence of practicum, the PSTs also reported numerous challenges that lessened their feelings of preparedness. These challenges were often related to the classroom environment and the school culture. For example, about half of the PSTs indicated that the practicum schools did not have the resources available or the support necessary to help them learn the work of teaching. In particular, the PSTs expressed concerns about translating the theoretical knowledge learned at the university into practice in authentic classrooms. These challenges engendered PSTs feeling less prepared and suggest that more support from both the university and the school is needed to help PSTs develop a stronger sense of preparedness. The area in which PSTs felt least prepared was that of classroom and behavior management, although the results also indicated that PSTs only felt a moderate level of general teaching efficacy and were less confident about how to support students as learners. Again, feelings of lower efficacy were related to the dissonance between the theory presented at university and real-world classroom practice. In order to close this gap between theory and practice, PSTs expressed the wish to have more time in the practicum, and more accountability for support from school-based mentors. In highlighting the challenges of the practicum in shaping PSTs’ sense of preparedness and efficacy, the study argues that better communication between the ITE providers and the practicum schools is necessary in order to maximize the benefit of the practicum experience.

Keywords: impact, mathematics, practicum experience, pre-service teachers, sense of preparedness

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Authors: Armineh Nourbakhsh, Sameena Shah, Carolyn Rose

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Layout-aware language models have been used to create multimodal representations for documents that are in image form, achieving relatively high accuracy in document understanding tasks. However, the large number of parameters in the resulting models makes building and using them prohibitive without access to high-performing processing units with large memory capacity. We propose an alternative approach that can create efficient representations without the need for a neural visual backbone. This leads to an 80% reduction in the number of parameters compared to the smallest SOTA model, widely expanding applicability. In addition, our layout embeddings are pre-trained on spatial and visual cues alone and only fused with text embeddings in downstream tasks, which can facilitate applicability to low-resource of multi-lingual domains. Despite using 2.5% of training data, we show competitive performance on two form understanding tasks: semantic labeling and link prediction.

Keywords: layout understanding, form understanding, multimodal document understanding, bias-augmented attention

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Authors: Ambrish Singh

Abstract:

The corrosion inhibition performance of pyran derivatives (AP) on mild steel in 15% HCl was investigated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), potentiodynamic polarization, weight loss, contact angle, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) measurements, DFT and molecular dynamic simulation. The adsorption of APs on the surface of mild steel obeyed Langmuir isotherm. The potentiodynamic polarization study confirmed that inhibitors are mixed type with cathodic predominance. Molecular dynamic simulation was applied to search for the most stable configuration and adsorption energies for the interaction of the inhibitors with Fe (110) surface. The theoretical data obtained are, in most cases, in agreement with experimental results.

Keywords: acidizing inhibitor, pyran derivatives, DFT, molecular simulation, mild steel, EIS

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Authors: O. I. Ekwueme

Abstract:

New media technologies are noted for their immense contributions in various sectors of the economy which are believed to have resulted in the development of European countries. There is an assumption that we cannot have development communication without communication development, but we are not sure if new media technologies contribute to development in the South-East zone, Nigeria. The study employed mixed method and discovered that new media technologies have a very minimal relationship to development in the South-East zone, Nigeria. It was discovered that the media report on development news is basically informative instead of interactive. The South-East zone is scarcely covered unlike other zones. It argued that the communication technologies introduced in Nigeria was as a result of their struggle for independence. It was recommended that media organisations in the South-East zone should give adequate coverage to the zone, and be more interactive.

Keywords: communication, development, new media, technologies

Procedia PDF Downloads 340

Authors: Diego De Castro Rodrigues, Marcelo Lisboa Rocha, Daniela M. De Q. Trevisan, Marcos Dias Da Conceicao, Gabriel Rosa, Rommel M. Barbosa

Abstract:

The use of association rules algorithms within data mining is recognized as being of great value in the knowledge discovery in databases. Very often, the number of rules generated is high, sometimes even in databases with small volume, so the success in the analysis of results can be hampered by this quantity. The purpose of this research is to present a method for reducing the quantity of rules generated with association algorithms. Therefore, a computational algorithm was developed with the use of a Weka Application Programming Interface, which allows the execution of the method on different types of databases. After the development, tests were carried out on three types of databases: synthetic, model, and real. Efficient results were obtained in reducing the number of rules, where the worst case presented a gain of more than 50%, considering the concepts of support, confidence, and lift as measures. This study concluded that the proposed model is feasible and quite interesting, contributing to the analysis of the results of association rules generated from the use of algorithms.

Keywords: data mining, association rules, rules reduction, artificial intelligence

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Authors: Guneet Saini, Shahrukh, Sunil Sharma

Abstract:

Traffic congestion is the most critical issue faced by those in the transportation profession today. Over the past few years, roundabouts have been recognized as a measure to promote efficiency at intersections globally. In developing countries like India, this type of intersection still faces a lot of issues, such as bottleneck situations, long queues and increased waiting times, due to increasing traffic which in turn affect the performance of the entire urban network. This research is a case study of a non-conventional roundabout, in terms of geometric design, in a small town in India. These types of roundabouts should be analyzed for their functionality in mixed traffic conditions, prevalent in many developing countries. Microscopic traffic simulation is an effective tool to analyze traffic conditions and estimate various measures of operational performance of intersections such as capacity, vehicle delay, queue length and Level of Service (LOS) of urban roadway network. This study involves analyzation of an unsymmetrical non-circular 6-legged roundabout known as “Kala Aam Chauraha” in a small town Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh, India using VISSIM simulation package which is the most widely used software for microscopic traffic simulation. For coding in VISSIM, data are collected from the site during morning and evening peak hours of a weekday and then analyzed for base model building. The model is calibrated on driving behavior and vehicle parameters and an optimal set of calibrated parameters is obtained followed by validation of the model to obtain the base model which can replicate the real field conditions. This calibrated and validated model is then used to analyze the prevailing operational traffic performance of the roundabout which is then compared with a proposed alternative to improve efficiency of roundabout network and to accommodate pedestrians in the geometry. The study results show that the alternative proposed is an advantage over the present roundabout as it considerably reduces congestion, vehicle delay and queue length and hence, successfully improves roundabout performance without compromising on pedestrian safety. The study proposes similar designs for modification of existing non-conventional roundabouts experiencing excessive delays and queues in order to improve their efficiency especially in the case of developing countries. From this study, it can be concluded that there is a need to improve the current geometry of such roundabouts to ensure better traffic performance and safety of drivers and pedestrians negotiating the intersection and hence this proposal may be considered as a best fit.

Keywords: operational performance, roundabout, simulation, VISSIM

Procedia PDF Downloads 139

Authors: Ana Rita Conde, Pilar Mota, Tânia Botelho, Suzana Caldeira, Isabel Rego, Jessica Pacheco, Osvaldo Silva, Áurea Sousa

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Tourism promotes well-being and health to children with ASD and their families. Literature indicates the need to provide tourist activities that integrate the therapeutic component, to promote the development and well-being of children with ASD. The study aims to implement tourist offers in Azores that integrate the therapeutic feature, assess their suitability and impact on the well-being and health of the child and caregivers. Using a mixed methodology, the study integrates families that experience and evaluate the impact of tourism products developed specifically for them.

Keywords: austism spectrum disorder, children, therapeutic tourism activities, well-being, health, inclusive tourism

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Authors: G. M. Komba

Abstract:

The Internet Gateway (IGW) has extra ability than a simple Mesh Router (MR) and the responsibility to route mostly the all traffic from Mesh Clients (MCs) to the Internet backbone however, IGWs are more expensive. Choosing strategic locations for the Internet Gateways (IGWs) best location in Backbone Wireless Mesh (BWM) precarious to the Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) and the location of IGW can improve a quantity of performance related problem. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm, namely New Gateway Location Algorithm (NGLA), which aims to achieve four objectives, decreasing the network cost effective, minimizing delay, optimizing the throughput capacity, Different from existing algorithms, the NGLA increasingly recognizes IGWs, allocates mesh routers (MRs) to identify IGWs and promises to find a feasible IGW location and install minimum as possible number of IGWs while regularly conserving the all Quality of Service (QoS) requests. Simulation results showing that the NGLA outperforms other different algorithms by comparing the number of IGWs with a large margin and it placed 40% less IGWs and 80% gain of throughput. Furthermore the NGLA is easy to implement and could be employed for BWM.

Keywords: Wireless Mesh Network, Gateway Location Algorithm, Quality of Service, BWM

Procedia PDF Downloads 371